# Note Taking Philosophy This post is primarily about my philosophy for note taking. ## The Collectors Fallacy [The collectors fallacy](https://zettelkasten.de/posts/collectors-fallacy/) warns us against simply making notes and never learning from them or reviewing them again. To avoid this I have a few main strategies. ### Projects Projects are the root of all my activity. I tag these pages with "project/active" when I start one, and several other tags depending on the project status. I maintain [Breadcrumb](https://publish.obsidian.md/hub/02+-+Community+Expansions/02.05+All+Community+Expansions/Plugins/breadcrumbs) trees from these projects as the primary anchor for my organization structure. This structures what is in-scope for my notes and what is not, preventing over-collecting. ### Flashcards I use https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/obsidian-spaced-repetition-recall and put flashcard string templates in most of pages. This requires me to review the information periodically, overcoming the collectors fallacy. ## Search I use tools like https://github.com/scambier/obsidian-omnisearch and https://github.com/brianpetro/obsidian-smart-connections for powerful search. This can be more effective than wikilinks in most cases. Be sure to make notes amenable to search as best you can. ## Disambiguation - [ ] 🚧 In Progress 🚧 ## Conjugations It's important to use [aliases](https://help.obsidian.md/aliases) to assist in linking names to the proper document no matter if they are plural, singular, or any other conjugation. Also referring to someone by just their first or last name, and many other cases. - [ ] Describe cases where aliases are duplicated between notes ## Tags vs. Wikilinks Completely pragmatically, in obsidian: * Tags can be ==hidden== in the graph view * Tags as ==meta organizational== labels like inbox, flashcard, etc * “tags are ==doors== and wikilinks are ==hallways==” * Tags can be ==hierarchical== * Wikilinks can have ==aliases== I prefer wikilinks and [Breadcrumb](https://publish.obsidian.md/hub/02+-+Community+Expansions/02.05+All+Community+Expansions/Plugins/breadcrumbs) for 99% of cases. I use tags in the rare case where I need a meta organizational tool, like for my projects and flashcards. Not every instance of a word needs to be wikilinked. For example: - [ ] No more than once on a single note. - [ ] Only in the places where you would want to easily find this reference to the word. Remember, the rest will still show up in Unlinked Mentions, so linking is almost like highlighting but for search. ## FAQ ### Do You Edit Old Notes in Zettelkasten (even though They Are Datetime stamped) Yes. The datetime stamp is just the unique id. They aren’t historical records, they are living documents. ### Plural or Single Document Names Doesn’t Matter if you use plural or singular for notes but try for singular (to avoid duplication) and use capitalization (for linters alias setting to deduplicate the alias). ## Whitespace in File Names Yes, unfortunately it just makes them look better in the file viewer. ## References * https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/i01caa/tags_vs_links/